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Sound Bites: Interview with Cornell Men’s Hockey Player Trevor Yates

Recently on ESPN Ithaca’s Between the Lines, host Tim Donnelly spoke with Trevor Yates, a member of the Cornell Men’s Ice Hockey Team. Yates has led the Big Red in points and goals as they have jumped out to a 13-2 record on the season. Here is a snippet of that conversation; to hear the full interview, visit ESPN Ithaca’s on-demand PodCenter at ESPNIthaca.com.

Tim Donnelly: You are 13-2 on the season, what are your expectations for this team? How good can you be?Trevor Yates: Well, I think we can be a great team. We can be a great team, but we’re not thinking about that right now. We’re just taking it, you know, game-by-game, and we’re not thinking national champions or anything like that right now. We’re just focused on Yale, Brown this weekend. Try to get two tough road games out of the way and hopefully come away with four points this weekend.

TD: I want to take a step back and look at your career from a wider angle. Your sophomore year, you scored 6 goals. Your junior year, you scored 12 goals. Now your senior year, you have 11 goals through 15 games. How have you been able to improve so consistently on a year to year basis?TY: You know, I think a lot of it is just growing up on and off the ice. Becoming more consistent as a player has helped a lot for me, especially this year and just competing harder every night and you know, I think this year we are playing a little faster, a little quicker, and that plays more to my strengths. So, I’m just trying to roll with that and focusing on the process and doing all those little things. You know, winning puck battles and making smart plays, getting the puck out of the zone, it just helps a lot. Like I said earlier, just growing as a person and a player has helped a lot in getting better and helping the team more every season.

TD: Is part of that development hunting for your own shot a little more? I played college sports, I know how it is sometimes as a freshmen you want to defer to the older guys, but now that you are an older guy, are you a little bit more assertive?TY: Yeah, definitely, you know, over my four years I’ve kind of become more confident in everything. Be that making plays or shooting the puck. One thing I’ve focused on this year is I wasn’t shooting the puck enough… and hey, you can’t score if you don’t shoot the puck.

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Listen to Between the Lines with Tim Donnelly from 4-5 p.m. weekdays on ESPN Ithaca (1160 AM/107.1 FM) and ESPNIthaca.com.